


This World Will Remember Us

by learningtolove



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Cat is mean and I am mean to her in this one, F/M, Possibly will be updated with a part 2?, Unsub!Spencer, this is dark, unsub!Elle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningtolove/pseuds/learningtolove
Summary: “Yes, this world will remember us.”Spencer Reid has been stuck at Cat Adams’ side, watching as a new rival, nicknamed Scarlet by the press, slowly unravels her sanity. But when Scarlet proves to be a little closer to home than anyone is expecting, Spencer has to decide: does he stick with what he knows or does he want the world to remember him?
Relationships: Elle Greenaway/Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & Catherine “Cat” Adams
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	This World Will Remember Us

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was a born out of a particularly wild groupchat discussion, so hhgrp: this ones for you! This was also inspired by the song “This World Will Remember Us” from Bonnie & Clyde: The Musical, which I highly recommended streaming! As always, kudos and comments are appreciated and this is not beta’d, so all mistakes are completely mine! I hope you all enjoy!

He didn’t understand how it ended up this way. He didn’t understand how one minute he’d been unlocking his apartment and the next he was sitting in the passenger seat of Cat’s car, a loaded gun in his hand. She’d been waiting for him in his apartment, the smuggest look he’d ever seen in his life painted across her features. A bullet in each knee later and two men he had never seen before were zipping him into a body bag. That had been a year ago. A year he had been with her. With Cat. 

He had fought it at first. When she first began taking him out with her, he had done everything he could to resist being compliant in her games. He wasn’t a killer. She would hiss into his ear the awful things these men had done, but it didn’t matter. A life was a life and he couldn’t take one away so easily. But he grew tired. Tired of fighting her, tired of her consequences, tired of feeling hopeless. The first time he followed her orders without backtalk was three months ago and Cat had nearly wept. She had done the one thing she always dreamed of. She had broken Spencer Reid. 

He looked over to his left as a passing car’s headlights illuminated her profile. Cat was biting at her bottom lip absently and he noticed that the circles under her eyes had practically turned into bruises. She hadn’t been sleeping lately, instead spending the hours of the early morning hissing into her phone and staring at the news clippings pinned to her walls. There was a new assassin running around on Cat’s turf. And while Spencer would never tell her this, she was clearly much better at what she did than the once great Miss .45. The newbie, who the press had started calling Scarlet, had quick clean kills and was in and out without leaving behind a trace of evidence. The mounting stress of a formidable rival was clearly taking its toll on the woman sitting next to him.

“Stop fucking staring,” Cat hissed at him. “It’s gonna be fine. I’m taking care of it.”

“Are you trying to convince me or you?” Spencer shot back with a raised eyebrow. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the scoff she let out at his question. His bitter confidence was clearly only welcome when it suited her.

“Have you read the target file yet?” she asked, pointedly ignoring his question. Spencer silently nodded. Roger Hitchcock. 38. Entertainment Lawyer. Notorious for his numerous wins in court and numerous sexual assault cases from past employees. The plan was fairly cut and dry: Hitchcock went  
to the same uppercut bar every Saturday night. Cat would get him to take her back to his place where Spencer would be waiting to help take him down. It seemed excessive to him, but she had always had a flare for the dramatics. 

The car stopped abruptly outside of an elegant high rise. The former agent sighed, tucking his gun into his suit jacket. Cat handed him the newly forged apartment key one of her cohorts had gotten made earlier in the week. The exchange was absolutely wordless and Spencer slammed the car door without a second glance. 

Getting into Hitchcock’s apartment was unsettlingly easy. The designer suit he’d donned coupled with the key had made his cover as the man’s newest assistant completely believable to the elevator operator, who let him up to the correct floor without a word of protest. The old Spencer would’ve rambled off a fact about elevators he had read from a book when he was six. The new Spencer didn’t even say thank you as he stepped off the lift. 

The inside of the apartment was exactly how he had imagined it. Sleek black, white, and glass themed furniture further cemented that a rich asshole bachelor lived here. The couch was a hard leather and it wasn’t hard to imagine the depravity that had occurred there. A bottle of bourbon paired with a set of crystal glasses was placed on top of the fireplace mantle and Spencer happily poured himself a generous shot. The warm burn of the alcohol sliding down his throat sent a shiver down his spine. This would only make the spiraling guilt that accompanied the enjoyment he knew he would feel at the end of this job so much worse, but he couldn’t bring himself to care right now.

That was truly the worst part of all of this. Not Cat or no longer being able to talk to anyone at the BAU. It was the way the sound of gunfire and blossoming blood made the corners of his lips twitch up. It was the way he stood over and watched as the life faded from their eyes, knowing he was the last thing they ever saw. He was a god. And he loved it more than he should. 

Spencer was shaken from his thoughts by the beep of his phone. He pulled it out to see a message from Cat waiting on the glowing screen. “Couldn’t get him to come home with me. Picked some other bitch. Will meet you there. Prepare for a casualty.” He sighed as he read it, putting down his glass. As much as he enjoyed the kill of a target, he hated when things got messy like this. But with Cat involved, they always did. 

The door to the apartment swung upon and Spencer quickly trained his gun at the intruder. His kidnapper’s sharp laugh made him lower it as she slammed the door behind her.

“As much as I’m sure you’d love to shoot me here, Spencie, we have company coming,” Cat taunted, wrapping her hand firmly around his bicep as she pulled him into the dark hallway with her. From there they had the best view of the living room, leather couch and all. A perfect bird’s eye view. 

After a few minutes of heavy silence, the door reopened and the egotistical laugh of a man was filling the apartment. Roger Hitchcock practically sashayed into the room, his company for the evening tucked around his right side and completely blocked from their view. Hitchcock was rambling about one of his business deals and the woman was laughing in all right the places, her warm giggle eerily familiar to Spencer’s ears. She turned to lean against the fireplace, her exposed back facing him. The dress wrapped tightly around her body was of red silk, the straps dangling from around her neck doing nothing to disguise the miles of tanned, freckled skin exposed. Her long, muscular legs led down to feet resting in black stilettos. Her dark hair fell to the side in gentle waves and she twirled it demurely with black fingernails. Something Hitchcock said made her laugh heartily and the sudden movement exposed the shape of something black tucked underneath her left breast. 

The woman was gone before he could say anything to Cat, her back still turned to him as she reclined against the couch, Hitchcock kneeling before her. His suit jacket was gone and by the smug grin spreading across his face, he had told himself that this was easy prey lounging before him. The businessman leaned down towards the woman, a hand outstretched to her face, when the gun fired. 

Spencer started, immediately looking down at Cat, who was as shocked as he was. He quickly looked up again to see Hitchcock laying on the living room floor, a single bullet hole in his head. The woman stood from the couch, a smirk on her face as she set the shotgun in her hand back on safety. Cat let out a strangled cry at the sight, her hands clenched into tight fists. 

She looked over at the sound and Spencer gasped at the face that greeted him. Dark brown eyes smudged with black met his and her delicate lips painted with red upturned into a brightest smile. It was Elle. Elle Greenaway was standing before him, in the tiniest dress he had ever seen, and she was smiling over a dead man. Spencer thought he might faint. 

“You’re Scarlet, aren’t you?” Cat hissed, stepping outside of the shadow of the hallway. “You’ve been ruining everything for me.”

Elle shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess, but you can talk to the media about the name. Seems kinda tacky to me.” She raised an eyebrow at the infuriated assassin, cold waves of annoyance radiating off of her. “Cat, you’ve ruined things all on your own. Not my fault you bit off more than you could chew.” Her eyes fluttered over to Spencer’s and her irritation immediately shifted to warmth. “Hi, Spencer.”

He couldn’t fight the blush that rose to his cheeks, waving awkwardly with his gun in his hand. “Elle, hi. You look good. Like, really good. Like… just wow-” Spencer’s rambling was cut off by cruel laughter erupting from the women standing next to him, her head thrown back dramatically. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? Of course! Of course it’s her! Of course the one fucking person standing in my way of doing my job is the woman you’ve been in love with for thirteen fucking years!” Cat shrieked, her tired eyes taking on a new manic appearance. “What did you think? You think if you went rogue he would notice? Cause that’s what he likes now. And you couldn’t get him before, so what? You thought you could just murder a bunch of my fucking hits and he would fall at your feet?” 

“No, that’s not what…” Elle trailed off as Cat took a lunging steps towards her, the assassin’s blood red nails swinging dangerously close to her face. 

“You’re fucking delusional, Elle Greenaway. You think you’re some heroic vigilante saving women? You wish. You’re the same insane bitch you were when you left him. And that’s all you’ll ever be.” Cat let out another laugh, her hair shaking wildly as she spewed her hatred. “He didn’t want you then. And he doesn’t want you now. You’re nothing. Absolutely fucking-”

The remainder of her sentence was drowned out by the loud boom of gunfire. Spencer immediately ran to Elle’s side, his hands running across her body to check for the wound. “Oh my god, are you okay? Is there any bleeding?” he asked frantically. 

“Spencer, I’m fine,” Elle muttered softly, clasping his hands in hers. She gestured with her head to the ground, where he turned to find Cat crumpled in front of Elle’s feet. A blossom of blood flowed rapidly throughout her chest, the hole in the middle a gaping exclamation of what had happened. Cat was dead. She was dead and Spencer was free. 

He turned again to his former co-worker, his eyes wide in amazement. “Holy shit,” he mumbled. His eyes raked over her, from her bright eyes to her red lips, her heaving cleavage to her muscular legs. The gun dangling in her hand was the final straw. His hand wrapped around the back of her neck as he yanked her mouth to his aggressively. 

There was nothing sweet about the kiss. It wasn’t the gentle, loving embrace he had once dreamed of sharing with her. It was raw and fierce, their teeth clacking as they rushed to find more of each other. Elle clenched Spencer’s dress shirt tightly in her hands, using it as her source of balance when he hiked one of her legs up around his hip. He stroked the soft skin with his thumb as he ravaged her mouth, the burning desire he had kept inside of him for her for more than a decade finally bubbling over. 

“Wait,” Elle exclaimed breathlessly, reluctantly pulling her swollen lips from Spencer’s. “We can’t do this here. It’s a mess in here and we need to get out before anyone comes looking for that jackass.” She explained as she jerked her thumb toward Hitchcock. 

Spencer nodded and reluctantly let go of her leg. As much as it pained him to let go of her, the sight of a disheveled and unbalanced Elle trying to clean up the crime scene that she had caused shot a wave of happiness through him. He watched silently as she wiped her gun down with a small bag of wipes that had been tucked away in her dress. She bent down and wrapped Hitchcock’s hand around it, pressing it down long enough for the prints to transfer. The gun fell to the dead man’s side as she let go and Elle smiled proudly at her handiwork. 

“The gun was his anyways,” she explained with a grin. “I drugged his drink at the bar last weekend so I could sneak back here and get it for tonight.”

“Wait, so you knew? That Cat and I were coming for him tonight?”

Elle giggled, slinging her arm around Spencer’s neck as she pressed their bodies together. “Of course I did. I had a man working for her for months before she brought you home. The original plan was to take her down so I could operate without competition, but as soon as I got the message she had you…” She ran her thumb gently over his cheek, smiling as Spencer leaned into her touch. “Everything I’ve done these past few months was to get to you. To get you free from her and back with me. If you want to be with me, of course.” 

Spencer chuckled as Elle’s confident facade faltered with her last sentence. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here with you, babe. But what are we gonna do now? Pretty sure the BAU isn’t going to take either of us back after this.” He bit his lip gently as he looked down at her, the words he had left unspoken very much registering in her understanding as their eyes met. She knew how much he enjoyed this. And the longer he looked at her, the more he realized she did too.

“What do you say about being the next Bonnie and Clyde, handsome?” Elle asked with a sweet smirk. “But none of that robbing banks shit. Now that that horrid bitch is gone, it’s just us. I have my target list and now we have hers. We’ll run this show, baby,” she cooed. “Just you and me.”

The former agent gave her a wicked grin as he took a step back, his hand reaching out for hers. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go. We’ve got some history to make.”

She tucked her gun back into her dress and wove her newly freed fingers tightly into his. “This world will remember us,” she said as she tugged him towards the door. 

Spencer smiled and followed behind her towards the fire escape door. “This world will remember us!”


End file.
